


When the sky shoots to kill

by peachenhun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, M/M, MAMA Powers, small amount of blood, very brief mentions of past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 07:58:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10589760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachenhun/pseuds/peachenhun
Summary: Jongdae has been a light in the tunnel, he’s been a bowl of fresh air. He’s been Sehun’s everything. But, there might be something more. He might be even more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> : Thank you for the mods for their hard work. I know for a fact that I couldn't have done it with their support, so shout out to you girls ♥   
> To my prompter: I'm sorry this got out of control. I think I got carried away. It just grew into this thing that has almost nothing to do with your prompt and I'm terribly sorry about that. This could be like.. the sequel of your prompt? I am so sorry, but I hope you'll like it anyway, even if it's not exactly what you wanted. Not all of it, anyway :) Happy reading <3

Sehun’s eyes stop on the trees on the other side of the street. He catches shades of green, from the deepest emerald taint to the brightest hints of yellow along the leaves’ ribs. They’re still and dried, the sun mercilessly shining down on them. He knows it’s probably because he’s inside and the windows are closed, but from where he’s sitting, it looks like the air is unbreathable outside. There are no sounds, no human presence. It looks dead and suffocating, dried and poisoned. Sehun instinctively looks up towards the top of the window, mindlessly looking for a patch of sky but the imposing houses across the street block any potential glimpse of blue. His insides feel like they’ve dropped at the pit of his stomach, and his heart misses a bit. It’s so easy to picture all those buildings and houses closing in on him, as though he were in a science-fiction movie and the earth was bending upwards. Sehun’s fingers clench on the fancy fabric of the couch he’s sitting on and his breathing gets erratic. He expects a low scratching sound to come from his chest pretty soon because he’s convinced his lungs have calcified and they’re bound to bump into his ribcage in a second or two. 

“Sehun?”

The latter flinches. He blinks away from the window, air rushing back down his windpipe almost painfully, and meets azure blue eyes. They soften upon catching Sehun’s gaze, but all _he_ reads in them is pity and a hint of compassion that feels as bitter as the rest. 

“Are you still having dreams?” his psychiatrist asks. 

He can tell she’s getting tired of his shit, and he’d very much like to say he, too, would like to take a break from himself. He tries to picture a life where he would have to deal with himself only two hours a week, but even with his imagination it appears too good to be true. 

“No,” he answers sincerely. He can’t take a break from himself, but at least at night he _can_ take a break from everything. 

She nods, visibly pleased. 

“I believe we found the right dose then,” she mumbles, more to herself than to him. “Do you still have trouble getting to sleep?”

He shrugs, and she lets out a low sigh. It feels accusatory and even though he knows she’s not blaming him for how dark his eyebags are getting, Sehun still takes the mere possibility that she could and turns it into a new bullet for the self-loathing gun he’s been aiming at himself for what feels like years now. His heart flinches in his chest, last sign of a dying want to stand up for himself, and he holds her gaze, the challenge in his eyes melting like snow in summer. 

“I’m _trying_ ”, he hisses. “It’s… it’s the wind. It’s so fucking loud.”

He should have kept his mouth shut, because the look she’s now giving him is even worse. She scribbles something on her pad, this stupid pad he’s had nightmares about, and readjusts the glasses on her nose. She looks so young for a psychiatrist and he wonders if it’s been months or years since she got out of med school. She has freckles running all over her cheekbones and a delicate turned-up nose. She could be pretty, she could be someone Sehun would be attracted to if he didn’t see her as this booby-trapped Pandora box. The pad looks like it’s part of her hand, and it’s covered with his dark secrets. Kissing her would be like kissing his own demons and Sehun has seen enough of them – he has been burnt often enough to know better. And it’s complicated anyway. It’s not just about him, or her, it’s about – 

“Have you talked to your friend?” she asks and Sehun mentally curses. She always knows where to press her long finger, and she hits the bull’s eye every fucking time. “Have you seen him again?”

Sehun lowers his eyes, taking in his own fingers. They’re tightly linked, so tightly actually that his knuckles are turning white. He shakes his head. 

“Jongdae is… he’s busy at work. And I don’t want to talk to him about that, I told you already.”

She nods, and Sehun nods back. He glances at his watch without even trying to be discreet. He knows she’s run out of questions, and it’s probably for the better – he ran out of answers. Now is the part where she pretends she has nothing to say, hoping that he’ll suddenly come up with a long ass rant about how blank and empty he feels. _You have to meet me in the middle_ , she once said, and it sometimes comes back to him on sleepless nights; the way she looked at him, the slight twitch of her perfect lips. She didn’t even believe it herself, and Sehun has long stopped seeing value and courage in himself. 

Today’s session ends up like the others: with ten long minutes of silence, azure blue eyes looking into Sehun’s face, and the latter mentally counting down the seconds and the minutes until he’s allowed to get out. Coming here _is_ meeting her halfway and the fact that she expects more of him is probably the reason why this - this therapy and her unstoppable flow of prescriptions – will never work. 

He closes his eyes to avoid peeking through the window. 

 

The tall buildings of the city haven’t started to shrink in Sehun’s rear view yet that the wind is already blowing on his car, making it slightly sway on the lonely road. There’s a few seconds of in-between where he isn’t in the city anymore but not at the ocean yet; a few seconds where he left behind the suffocating dryness of the centre but hasn’t dived into the crushing loneliness of his place yet. The in-between is so short and fleeting that Sehun can close his eyes to focus on the taste it leaves on the back of his tongue without risking his life. Sometimes he wonders what would happen if he were to turn the wheel and spin off the road, but he never comes to a conclusion because before the thought blooms into a full reasoning, the ocean has taken over the bottom half of his windscreen and his house is standing against the horizon, anchoring him to this reality and waiting for him. He can never resist the pull but _oh_ how he wishes he could. 

Another blast of wind almost throws him off balance when he finally gets out of his car. He groans, the sound immediately stolen from him by the erratic gusts all around him, and makes his way to his fancy beach house, keys tingling between his cold fingers. When you live so close to the sea, the wind doesn’t sound like it does in the city. It doesn’t ruffle through leaves and doesn’t howl between two rows of high buildings. This close to the sea, the wind is wild and unforgiving. It picks up handfuls of sand and it hurls them against the windows, it snaps like a whip and throws tantrum against the doors. That close to the sea, the wind isn’t just a figurative way of talking about hats flying away and hairstyles getting messed up; that close to the sea, the wind is visible. It’s in the high waves, in the hazy shapes it draws from the dunes, and it’s in the threatening clouds weighing down on the horizon. It’s in Sehun’s insomnias too, in the panic attacks he’s had buried under his blankets trying to convince himself that he didn’t hear voices outside.

Even in the safety of his house, the balance feels precarious. He has too many bay windows and too many big openings to even try to ignore the close sea and the high waves, and how chaotic it always looks. Sehun has stopped trying to remember why he bought that house – which seemed like a heavenly place when he stumbled upon it with his estate agent – and has now come to blame the rush of adrenaline and his new title of best seller author. None of this which makes any sense now.

He throws his keys on the coffee table and winces at the crystalline sound echoing in his living room. The sand is scratching against his largest bay windows, almost silver under the darkening sky. There’s a storm on its way – there’s _always_ a storm – but instead of closing his windows and shutters, Sehun just reaches out for the metallic knob. The wind rushes into the living room, so violently that Sehun has to brace himself not to topple backwards. He barely glances at the tiny dunes now forming on his rug and finally steps out of his house. He is suddenly reminded of the song Jongdae always sings, the melody clear and distinct in his mind although he can’t remember the title for some reasons, and he knows, before he sees it, what it means. 

He stops at the invisible border between what he considers his propriety and the wilderness of the beach, and looks up at the familiar silhouette standing out against the pearl grey of the ocean. The wind is ruffling through Jongdae’s hair, and the sea comes to die at his heels, almost delicate despite the loud roaring echoing all around them. Their eyes meet, and Sehun cannot resist the pull on the corner of his lips and the saltiness flooding his mouth as he smiles tastes sweeter than it ever did. Jongdae’s dark eyes turn into crescents and his playful lips curl upwards, cutting short the lines he was probably singing – and that Sehun pretends he can hear. ( _You’ll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away._ ).

The horizon line is now so dark that sea and sky have merged together, but it doesn’t feel as apocalyptic now that Jongdae is making his way to Sehun’s house. The wind is still blowing, howling and grabbing Sehun to try and make him fall, but to Sehun, it feels gravity-less. There are no anchors, no demons, no anxiety or loneliness. This is his in-between, his break and redemption. This is when he finally breathes. 

He only breathes out when Jongdae’s fingers close around his. 

 

 

Outside the wind is roaring, hard and angry, fierce like a lion. The storm has hit the coast a couple of hours earlier, and Sehun’s expensive shutters can’t even hide the threatening darkness thickening on the other side of the window. The house squeaks under the elements’ repeated attacks, but in the warmth of his bed and with Jongdae pressed against his side, Sehun feels safe for the first time in two weeks. There’s thunder rumbling in the distance, sand clinking against every window of the house and unstoppable waves crashing on the beach, but it’s not enough to overpower Jongdae’s singing voice. It’s always the same song, a Johnny Cash masterpiece whose original version has somehow lost its magic since Sehun heard the lyrics in Jongdae’s mouth, and it always, always, gives Jongdae this melancholic, almost pained look. To Sehun, it feels mostly comforting. It’s like finding familiarity where you didn’t expect it to be, like stumbling upon a memory so old you had forgotten it existed in the first place, and Sehun quite likes the idea of a _more_ , something that would exist out of the borders of his existence.

“There’s always a storm when you’re here,” Sehun half-whispers half-says. 

He glances at Jongdae who stops singing with a soft smile 

“It’s not my fault if it’s always stormy where you live,” he counters. 

He’s not wrong, Sehun muses. During his darkness nights, he always wonders if there isn’t some correlation between the shitty weather and the crushing despair taking a hold of his heart. It’s sunny in town, but here, it feels like his own loneliness has spread along the sea, and it’s coming back to bite him in the ass when he as much as forgets how sad he’s supposed to be. It wouldn’t even surprise him to learn that his own negativity has had such a destructive impact on a place that used to be beautiful. On other nights, he laughs hysterically at the irony of it, of how dark the sky is and how white the pages on his Word document are. On nights where Jongdae is sprawled in bed with him, he mostly listens. More often than not, he even enjoys. 

“Have you ever thought about moving into town?” Jongdae asks. He tilts his head, his black hair standing out against the pristine white of Sehun’s pillows, and the latter has to catch his breath. Sometimes, Jongdae is too beautiful to be true. 

“You know why I moved here,” he answers. “It’s for my book. I needed the silence.”

Jongdae snorts. 

“I would hardly say it’s silent here.”

A particularly violent gust of wind has the window vibrating. Jongdae smiles at him, all teeth and crinkled eyes, and Sehun can’t help but slide deeper under the blankets. Jongdae’s legs tighten around his as he tilts his head on the side to avoid Sehun’s elbow. The bed is large, big enough for Sehun to sleep straight without having his feet peeking out of the frame, but they somehow always end up in a tangled mess of limbs when they’re together. There’s an elbow poking against Sehun’s side, and he has no idea if it’s his or Jongdae. His right leg is numb, but his chest burning hot under Jongdae’s palm. 

He grabs the blanket and pulls it up while Jongdae scoots closer. 

“How’s it going?” Jongdae asks in his low, throaty voice. It’s so different from his singing voice, but it’s deeper, more layered and beautiful. It’s the voice of secrets and intimacy. “Your book. Have you written since the last time I was here?”

Sehun glances at the small desk in the back of his room and at the laptop sitting on it like it’s a throne. He usually leaves it open for some obscure reasons, but it is shut now because of the shame. He hasn’t written a word in weeks and he’s afraid of the dust gathering on the keyboard, he’s afraid of sitting in his chair and realizing he cannot see the letters anymore. 

“It’s doing… okay,” he says. His hold tightens around Jongdae. “It’s… yeah, okay.”

“Are you writing about me?” Jongdae asks with a smirk. He pokes Sehun’s jawline and his smile widens when Sehun looks down at him. 

Sehun chuckles, but it sounds more like a sob to his ears. He wouldn’t dare to approach Jongdae in writing. He wouldn’t even dream about it. For all he knows, he messed up a whole ecosystem when he came to live here, and he would be too afraid to do the same with Jongdae. Writing means cutting flesh open without anaesthesia and drawing shapes with puddles of blood, and Sehun would never want Jongdae to be his guinea pig. Not when all he writes about is destruction, limbs missing and phantom pain. 

“Would you want me to write about you?” he counters. 

Jongdae’s eyes smile spreads shadows over his cheekbones. He squirms between his arms and slides out of Sehun’s grip just so he can straddle him. When he moves to position himself above Sehun, a whiff of fresh air rushes under the covers and wakes up a tidal wave of goosebump all over Sehun’s skin. He grabs Jongdae’s thighs but immediately lets go. If writing is a bloody surgical operation, then the writer is the one holding the scalpels. In Sehun’s worst nightmares, he is some fucked up version of Edward Scissorhands. 

Jongdae grabs his hands and puts them back on his thighs with a soft smile. 

“I guess there’s not much inspiration here,” he says. His smile turns playful. “You could either write about me or about the wind.”

Sehun unconsciously mimics Jongdae’s teasing tone while pretending he doesn’t notice his fingers shaking on Jongdae’s waist. 

“I’ll write about the wind then, because you’re not here that much.”

“It’s not my fault,” Jongdae pouts, his last syllables turning into a soft whine. It’s slightly shorter than his usual protesting onomatopoeias, and Sehun’s fingers now tracing over his lower abdomen muscles are to blame for that. “Being an intern sucks, I have to be there before everyone and I’m the last one to leave.” Jongdae’s eyes flutter close while a new smile blooms over his face. He lets go of Sehun’s shoulder and puts his hands on either sides of Sehun’s face, fingers sinking into the pillow. “You should be concerned about my well-being instead of scowling me,” he croaks out. 

“Consider this being me showing my concern,” Sehun teases him before grabbing him by the neck and pulling him down for an open-mouthed kiss. 

Jongdae softly moans into the kiss, one hand closing around a lock of hair while the other clutches on the fabric. Sehun faintly hears his pillow case protest under the roaring of the wind and Jongdae’s harsh breathing against his lips. He lies down on Sehun, intertwining their legs and peppering small fluttering kisses all over Sehun’s mouth. He leaves a soft giggle against the sensitive skin over Sehun’s carotid, and Jongdae’s warmth spreads all over Sehun’s body, running through his veins and rushing into his heart. 

“For all it’s worth, I would very much like to read what you’d have to say about the wind,” Jongdae mumbles with his other throaty voice, the one that seems to come from his stomach. It spreads like fire inside Sehun. 

He locks his arms around Jongdae and shivers as a knee slides along a soft thigh although he has no idea which is whose. It’s so easy to forget the phantom pains around Jongdae and how he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night with the certainty that something huge is missing, because Jongdae gives him more limbs, a second heart and a better pair of lungs. It turns Sehun into a monster made for Ancient Greek myths, and for all he knows, he could be a god.

Outside, the storm is raging on, unleashing the peak of its violence and anger over the coast, and, so it seems, on Sehun’s house. The alarm standing on Sehun’s bedside table claims with flickering red number that it’s midnight, but it’s been midnight for two hours now, and judging by the flashes of light rushing into Sehun’s room intermittently, it will be midnight for at least one more hour. He doesn’t mind though – it’s hard to mind anyway with Jongdae’s hand running along his thigh and his lips burning against his collarbones.

Sex with Jongdae is always electric. It was tingling earlier, warm just under the surface of his skin, it was freeing and regenerative, but now it’s deeper, it’s burning and blinding. Sehun curls one leg around Jongdae’s waist, his whole body arching off the mattress when Jongdae’s fingers stop on his dick, and he bites back a moan when Jongdae starts nibbling on his earlobe. It’s almost apocalyptic, the way Jongdae groans in his ear just as thunder booms outside, and how he crawls over Sehun like a snake, all angry bites and hungry lips. Outside, the elements are raging on, the ocean is feasting on the coast and the sky is shooting to kill, but Jongdae is the apocalypse. He’s the one bringing Sehun’s world to an end.

Jongdae who closes a hand around Sehun’s neck to keep him still, Jongdae who leans down and bites more than he kisses, and Jongdae who presses angry red marks on the soft skin of Sehun’s arms. Sehun gasps, thrusting into his boyfriend’s fist and reaching out to pull him down for a kiss, his mind shutting down. Jongdae chuckles slightly before giving in to the kiss, but his fingers slightly clench around Sehun’s throat and the latter whines against Jongdae’s lips. 

“I missed you,” he lets out in a hoarse whisper which has Jongdae looking up, slightly thrown off. 

“I missed you too,” he says softly, so innocently as if he wasn’t palming Sehun’s balls, fingers eager and hungry.

Sehun wants to ask if he’s done something wrong, he wants to make sure Jongdae really didn’t show up for two weeks because of work, he wants to know if he screwed this up too, but he doesn’t even make it to the shaping of the sentences in his mind. Jongdae’s grip tighten on his dick, his thumb lingers on the slit and Sehun’s body quivers under the new wave of pleasure. 

“God, Jongdae,” he groans, and Jongdae lets out another chuckle. 

Sehun brings his fingers to the hand Jongdae still has around his neck and curl them around Jongdae’s wrist before locking his ankles against the small of Jongdae’s back. Two can play this game. He tightens his thighs around Jongdae’s waist and pulls him down as he thrusts up. Jongdae lets go of his dick just before their crotch meet and the low whine he lets out at the much needed friction has Sehun’s heart jumping into his throat. He rubs soothing circles on the back of Jongdae’s hand and repeats the movement, his hips snapping up more harshly this time, and he revels in the string of throaty moans Jongdae is now letting out.

A new lightning bolt shatters the black of the night, and the blue light fills Sehun’s room. For a brief second, there are no shadows left; even the furniture turns a blinding pristine white and Jongdae’s dark blown-out pupils burn Sehun’s retinas, leaving a red circle print on both his eyelids when he closes eyes, pleasure tightening his abdomen muscles. He feels Jongdae leaning down, he hears him pants above him and he follows, eager, Jongdae’s every movement and spreads his legs even more. Jongdae’s hand lets go of Sehun’s neck and their fingers bump and knock into one another before Sehun finally finds the comforting space between Jongdae’s digits. Jongdae presses their hands against the pillow while his other one presses bruises on Sehun’s hipbone to adjust the angle of their bodies. 

Sex with Jongdae is always amazing, but when he gets this eager and angry, it’s almost destructive. He fucks Sehun like he has no time to spare and only cares about his own climax. Sehun’s legs are already numb from how tight he’s clenching them around Jondgae’s waist, and his throat burns a little more with every whine he spills. His tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth and he’s pretty sure gravity has no pull left over him but he doesn’t let go because whatever Jongdae’s chasing around, he wants to be there when he finds it. 

Jongdae is panting in his ear, muscles tensing with every rock of his hips and his whole body is now weighing down on Sehun’s hand he has pressed on the pillow, fingers clenching around Sehun’s, but Sehun doesn’t mind. He vaguely hears himself begging Jongdae to _just fucking touch me_ but he does feel the boiling tears in the corner of his eyes. They’ve been doing this all night, this being Jongdae going down on him, spreading his thighs, biting down on his collarbones and making him come harder every time, and it’s just too much, way too much. Sehun doesn’t feel half of his body anymore and each response Jongdae draws out of him with a slap of their hips together gets him closer to the snapping point. He moans when Jongdae’s fingers close around his waist and slightly tilt him, but despair takes over pleasure when his body arches off the mattress. He feels so tight, so tensed, like an arrow’s string and he just wants to snap now, once and for all. 

“Jongdae,” he gasps. “ _Please_.” 

Jongdae leans in to kiss him on the mouth, on the tip of his nose and even in the corners of his eyes with burning lips. Sehun’s hand shoot up and he curls his fingers on the soft locks on the back of Jongdae’s head. Jongdae answers with another kiss on Sehun’s temple, his free hand slipping under Sehun’s arching back to run along his bent spine, both gentle and heavy. Their lips lock again but they mostly just breathe in and out in each other’s mouths until Jongdae finally jerks him off and Sehun stops breathing altogether. 

Sehun comes first, but Jongdae is quick to follow. He groans in Sehun’s ears, hips shaking to a stop and fingers clenching around Sehun’s and his whole body collapsing on top of Sehun’s. The latter welcomes the familiar jolt of pain as Jongdae’s jutting hipbone digs into his lower abdomen, and he’s reminded of the two long weeks he’s spent craving it. He locks his arms around Jongdae as the most random thought suddenly hits him. 

“I love thunderstorms,” he breathes out.

Jongdae pulls up just enough so he can meet Sehun’s gaze, and his eyes wrinkle up. He grabs Sehun’s chin and holds him still as he leans down for a soft and surprisingly chaste kiss. 

“Of course you do,” he smiles. 

Sehun gathers Jongdae in his arms before lying him down next to him. He grabs the blankets and pulls them up before pulling in Jongdae even closer. He wants to say how much he likes the blue halo Jongdae seems to be basking in whenever the sky cracks open, but he is suddenly hit by the parallel between the chaos outside and the peacefulness radiating from Jongdae and he chooses not to break the silence. Instead he just blinks and stares at Jongdae while the latter stares back, the playfulness in his eyes always lurking in the depth of his irises. 

“Too tired for another round?” he asks, and Sehun snorts. 

“We’ve been at it for hours,” he half-complains half-brags, which has Jongdae’s fingers running along the soft bumps of his ribs and drawing out low giggly hiccups from Sehun. 

“We’re catching up,” Jongdae says. “And I want to make sure you have enough material if you suddenly decide to write about me.”

“I could write a whole chapter about your achievements in bed,” Sehun chuckles. 

Jongdae watches him, obviously pleased, the soft bridge of his nose crinkling up with content. He straightens up, using his elbow for balance and leans down for another kiss. He lingers above Sehun, his breath fanning over the latter’s lips, and his eyes staring down at Sehun’s, intense and mesmerizing. 

“I like that you called them _achievements_ ,” he teases. “It means I rocked your world.”

“You sure did,” Sehun answers, half a smile on his lips. 

The other half is lost in the back of his mind, under layers and layers of admiration and love for Jongdae. It’s like stargazing and trying to come up with ridicule alien species at the same time: no matter how funny the idea of a space dog that would jump like a rabbit is, there’s always a moment when you cannot let go of the miracle happening above your head anymore. You always end up choking a bit at the beauty of it all, at how special and important it is, and how privileged you feel for just being able to look up. 

And even though he isn’t sure he deserves it, Sehun feels so, so privileged. It’d be selfish to want more, risky even, with the way he sometimes snaps and stares at the wall, hoping the house would finally swallow him down, but he always considers it when Jongdae looks at him like that. He always wants to ask. He just never does.

 

 

Dishes clinkering pull Sehun out of his deep slumber. His mind struggles with the unusual information it’s getting and it has his heart slightly speeding up. He is familiar with the loneliness that comes with the realisation that the warmth on the right side of the bed is fading out and that the outlines of Jongdae’s body left on the crinkled sheet are slowly smoothening themselves out, but the noise coming from the kitchen and the voice singing in a low tone is completely new. Jongdae never lingers. He is gone before breakfast, before dawn, before Sehun has a chance to kiss him hello; gone to the city and his terrible internship, and all is left is still silence. 

Today, Sehun’s house is breathing though. It’s living. Sehun sits up in his bed, blinking his confusion away. One glance at the window tells him the sky is still as chaotic outside and he expects another thunderstorm to hit in the hour, but as unsurprising as it is, it’s the unprecedented clash with the atmosphere inside his house that catches Sehun off guard. He slips out of bed, not even daring to breathe out of fear to break the spell or to realise he’s been dreaming all this time, and quickly puts on his boxer shorts and shirt thrown on the floor the night before. The sound of the coffee machine covers the voice singing, and Sehun is now fairly sure he isn’t imagining it. He forgets caution and suspicion and rushes to the kitchen, almost tripping on his own feet as he does so. ( _In all my dreams, dear, you seem to leave me, when I awake my poor heart pains. So when you come back and make me happy, I’ll forgive you, dear, and take all the blame_ sings the voice.)

“Jongdae,” Sehun half-croaks half-screams as he barges into the kitchen. 

He is welcomed by the surrealist sight of Jongdae, as lightly dressed as himself, turning around with a mug of coffee in one hand and a tea spoon in the other. His face lights up upon seeing Sehun and his lips stretch in a wide smile. 

“Hello, love,” he says and Sehun’s heart swells in his chest. 

“You’re staying?” He doesn’t want to sound too hopeful, doesn’t want to dig his own grave if he turns out to be wrong, but he also can’t help but check eagerly the dishes Jongdae has been laying out on the table. He counts two bowls of rice and two sets of chopsticks. This should be proof enough. It isn’t. He looks up as Jongdae’s smile gets cheekier and somehow sweeter. 

“I am,” he answers simply. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” Sehun nods. 

Jongdae gestures at the table, and it takes Sehun a couple more seconds to digest. They never ate together. Jongdae just never stayed. It’s so special and yet, Jongdae makes it looks so normal and so familiar. The way he goes from the sink to the fridge, hips swaying instinctively to avoid the wooden chair, makes him look like he belongs. He does. It’s just that… he’s never stayed long enough to show it. 

Sehun sits down, his stomach grumbling. It’s been so long since the last time he had a decent breakfast. Looking down at the food Jongdae cooked for _him_ , he instantly forgets all thoughts of pills in small plastic bottles he is supposed to take and appointments in the city he’s supposed to call for. He reaches out for the chopsticks but freezes when a patch of light lands on the back of his hand. Discreet but undeniable warmth immediately spreads to his fingers while the brightness in the room consequently increases. He looks up, blinks away the red stains left on his irises by the abrupt change of luminosity, and stares at the cloudless sky and the calm sea, surprised. 

“Uh,” he lets out. “That’s weird.”

Jongdae looks over his shoulder, and it’s like the darkness engulfed by the sun rays flooding the room have rushed to his face. Shadows seem to be pouring from his eyes as he takes in the sunny weather, and when he meets Sehun’s eyes, there’s a hint of obscurity in his that Sehun would have never expected. He opens his mouth to ask but can’t find the words. 

“Eat your breakfast,” Jongdae says, softly, lovingly. Almost sadly. 

“Jong-?” The missing syllable never crosses Sehun’s lips as his door bell echoes in the room. 

Jongdae eludes Sehun’s gaze to turn back to the sink, and the giggly happiness Sehun had been feeling immediately dies away. Azure blue sky stains the edge of his vision and blinding white sand leaves tiny burning dots on his retinas as he stands up and makes his way to the front door, confused. Behind him, the sound of water running thickens the heaviness coming from Jongdae in waves. Sehun glances at him one last time before opening the door – on which someone is now knocking impatiently – but Jongdae doesn’t look back, seemingly too busy washing the dishes. 

Sehun opens the door and a smaller man with furrowed brows immediately pushes him into the room, eyes shooting daggers at him. 

“We have to leave,” he says. “Where is he?”

“What the fuck?” Sehun blurts as he regains his balance with difficulty. The stranger now stepping into _his_ house happens to be much stronger than he looks. “Hey, what are you doing?!”

Before he can attempt anything, Jongdae is by his side, but what happens next completely defies Sehun’s common sense. With the impression that his conscience is leaving his body to watch the scene from above, he stares, mouth agape, as Jongdae shuts the door and turns to the stranger. 

“They’re already on their way?” he asks, and the stranger glares at him. 

“What did you expect? They’ve been waiting for this. The sky fucking cleared in less than five seconds, Jongdae.”

Jongdae glances at the window bay and sighs. But the look the stranger is giving the windows is much more excited. He gestures at them with a nod of his head, his face still closed and determined, but his eyes now glaring fiercely. 

“This way,” he commands. He’s probably not used to being disobeyed, because he doesn’t even wait for Jongdae’s answer to take a first step towards the window bay. 

This is what breaks Sehun out of his confusion. It’s the way Jongdae seems to instinctively fall in line behind the man and the fact that he obviously knows him. Sehun reaches out, grabs Jongdae’s wrist and pulls him away from the man’s reach. The latter turns around, quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. It’s Jongdae who opens his mouth first, and what he says makes no sense. 

“Sehun,” Jongdae says, slowly, as though he was afraid Sehun wouldn’t understand. “We have to leave now. You have to trust me, okay?”

“Is he coming?” the man intervenes. Sehun hears _he’s not allowed to come_.

“Who the fuck is that?” he asks Jongdae, his fingers tightening around Jongdae’s wrists. “Jongdae, what the fuck?”

“Trust me,” Jongdae repeats. He glares at the man. “And _yes_ , he is. I’m done leaving him behind, you hear me?”

The man’s eyes travel from Jongdae to Sehun, then back to Jongdae. 

“We have to go,” he repeats, voice low and thick. “I don’t fucking care what you do, but we have to go, _now_.”

Jongdae nods then turns back to Sehun. He curls his fingers around Sehun’s wrist, his palm pressing against the latter, and nothing makes sense. Jongdae’s skin wears an unusual yellowish glow due to the intense blue of the sky behind him. Sehun quickly glances at the calm ocean and bright sand before he draws back his attention on Jongdae. The man is by the bay windows now, and Sehun instinctively braces himself for the inevitable angry gust of air when he opens the door, but nothing comes if not warmth and stillness. 

“Jongdae,” the man says as he puts a foot outside Sehun’s living room. In what world, what reality, would this make sense? The knock on Sehun’s door was probably less than three minutes ago, and yet, everything has been turned upside down. Sehun can’t understand how and especially _why_ but he knows deep down today won’t be his first breakfast with Jongdae. 

“Sehun,” Jongdae repeats. It’s not a plea this time. It’s merely a whisper. “Trust me. Please.”

His face is so expressive, with tiny little flickers of hope taking over his retinas, and a good hundreds of other emotions flashing through his features. The warmth of his sheets is still thick and vivid all over Sehun’s limbs. Everything was so peaceful and quiet. Jongdae was going to stay and - 

“Jongdae!” the man snaps. 

Jongdae’s features harden. He bites his lips and tightens his hold on Sehun’s wrist

“I’m sorry Sehun,” he says before pulling him closer. 

Sehun gasps as he almost trips over his feet, taken aback by Jongdae’s unexpected strength. For someone who looks this frail, Jongdae is taking over Sehun way too easily. Fear shoots ice through his veins as he stumbles to regain his balance. 

“Jongdae,” he starts. His voice feels too thick for his mouth, too heavy. He clears his throat, licks his lips and tastes the ocean on the tip of his tongue. His fingers close around Jongdae’s wrist. “Jongdae, what’s going on, I don’t understand- ”

“Kyungsoo,” Jongdae cuts him. It takes Sehun a couple of seconds to realize it wasn’t his answer – but a name. The man’s, who is currently turning around to Jongdae, half of his body out of the house, the skin of his arm pale in the sunlight. “Kyungsoo,” Jongdae repeats in a whisper. “They’re already here.”

The stranger – Kyungsoo, frowns. He opens his mouth but before his tongue can roll out the first syllable, a sharp pang slices the air around them. The window door Kyungsoo was holding shatters in a multitude of crystalline sounds, delicate and noisy at the same time. Sehun immediately recoils, his instincts seizing his muscles. His hand is still tightly closed around Jongdae’s wrist though, and he pulls him down with a muffled curse. Jongdae curls around him, arms covering Sehun’s head and pressing him against his chest. There’s another gunshot that ends with a thicker sound that Sehun identifies as the result of a bullet lodging itself in a wall. He squirms in Jongdae’s embrace and checks the wall behind him, immediately catching the hole clashing against the dull grey of the wallpapers. 

“What the fuck,” he curses again before turning back to Jongdae whose hand is pressing hard on his nape, forcing Sehun down. 

Sehun grabs his shirt and pulls him towards the couch, hoping to make it behind the piece of furniture before it’s too late. It’s raining bullets now, glass and plaster dust, every decorative piece of Sehun’s flying around in the living room, the sounds echoing in an apocalyptic symphony that overpowers Sehun’s thoughts. He’d be lying on the ground and struggling to breathe if he could hear himself frenetically listing all the reasons why this cannot possibly be happening to him and Jongdae, so it’s all for the best. 

“Wait,” Jongdae calls him. His fingers clench around Sehun’s but the latter’s sweaty palm slides out of his hold. Jongdae reaches out and block Sehun’s ankle. “Sehun!” 

Sehun turns around but his protest and plea for Jongdae to crawl with him to safety drowns in a gargle in the back of his throat. He stares, taken aback, at Kyungsoo’s fingers clenching on the wall opening on the window bay. Sehun has to blink away the unusual brightness of the sky on the other side but shadows soon grow over his face, concealing the sun from him. Confused, his mind burns his senses with vertigo and his breath comes out in a staccato mess. 

The window bay was the real estate agent’s main argument for Sehun to buy this house. Most of the wall separating Sehun’s propriety from the beach is a floor-to-ceiling opening which, according to the agent “makes the sunny days even sunnier”. Of course, that was before Sehun moved in and before he vomited his depression and anxiety all over the place, luring in clouds with his negative thoughts, but there still was something sadistically enjoyable in sitting by the window bay and watching the world tear itself apart. Long story short, Sehun _knows_ how big are the floor-to-ceiling windows. So he knows that this wall now blocking out light from the kitchen wasn’t there. He knows that the stone growing out of Kyungsoo’s hands didn’t exist before. He knows that light, although grey and stormy, was pouring in his living room from the multitude of windows, and that this new darkness slowly taking over the room isn’t normal. He knows that none of the windows were blocked by a wall of bare stone. 

Silence falls on the room. Behind Sehun, the front door, driven out from its hinge by the wall that is now sealing off the entrance, cracks before falling on the floor in a low thud. Far above their heads, a regular mechanical sound tells them a helicopter is flying over the house. 

“What the _fuck_?” Sehun repeats, his voice breaking in an unusually high-pitched note. He pulls out his ankle from Jongdae’s fingers and scans his surroundings one more time just to make sure he didn’t imagine anything. It would be hard to come up with the idea of a moving wall that would run all around his house though, even for him. There’s no way out. 

And this all came out from Kyungsoo’s palms. 

“What the fuck?!” Sehun cries out. 

He jumps on his feet and runs to what once was threshold of his house, but his eyes were not deceiving him. There _is_ a wall right where there was just empty space not even five minutes earlier. An oddly warm, almost vibrant wall, but a wall all the same – and a solid one at that. Sehun presses his palms against the slightly bumpy surface and brings his ear closer to it, heart pounding in his chest. He’s not sure about the material – because he’s not a wall expert – but something tells him that the wall is thick. There’s agitation on the other side, but it’s distant and muffled, just like the helicopter’s rotor is. 

“Sehun…?” Jongdae starts in his back, cautious and soft. 

Sehun turns around. He feels like his ribcage is about to break from the harsh thumping of his heart. Breathing even starts to hurt now. 

“How did you do that?” he croaks out, his attention on Kyungsoo. 

In the semi-darkness, Sehun could have easily forgotten about what came _before_ the wall, but the tiny pieces of plaster and glass stabbing the ball of his feet just keep on adding to the already high pile of things he cannot digest. He’s reminded of the pill he forgot to take and he wonders if he finally lost it. 

“What is happening?” he asks, his voice losing its surprised tone in favour of an almost sobbing one. “What is happening, oh _god_ , who just fucking shot us?”

“Sehun,” Jongdae stops him. Sehun that voice, he knows the softness of those syllables, and when he looks up, he also meets eyes he knows everything of. His mind clings to Jongdae and Sehun can feel himself shrinking so that he would fit in the small spaces between Jongdae’s body and the rest of the world.

“Sehun, love,” Jongdae keeps going. “Don’t you know?” He sounds hopeful, like he does when he peppers kisses along Sehun’s jawline in the dead of the night. “Don’t you remember? Isn’t this,” he gestures at the destroyed room, “familiar?”

“Is it supposed to be?” Sehun asks. 

He tries hard, he does his best. But all he sees when he squints his eyes at the mess around them is broken fragments of things that were whole this morning, whether it is small clay cat figurines or pieces of furniture. He draws back his attention on Jongdae who slightly deflates. 

“What?” Sehun panics. “What was I supposed to remember? What’s happening? Jongdae?”

“Don’t worry,” the latter immediately stops him. He gestures at Kyungsoo, who remained silent but whose eyes never left Sehun. “This is Kyungsoo. You can trust him, okay? He’s my friend, so he’s yours too.”

Kyungsoo slightly nods in lieu of greetings, and Sehun can’t restrain a weak chuckle from rasping in his throat. If he could remember how to word his thoughts on a document, he thinks he would try to write a Kyungsoo into his story. The contrast between the composure and the quiet elegance of the man and the chaos spreading at his feet would make an interesting descriptive paragraph. Even without the stone that grew out of his small fingers, that is. 

“Sehun,” he says, vaguely gesturing at his own chest. 

Kyungsoo quirks an eyebrow. “I know,” he says, judging. He turns to Jongdae. “Wasn’t he supposed to remember?” he asks, accusative.

“He needs time,” Jongdae counter attacks. “He needs to take it slow. And he needs proof, evidence. How would you react?”

“Isn’t this proof enough?” Kyungsoo snorts. 

Sehun watches the exchange, completely lost. Those words have meaning, he knows them. He understands the precise combination they’ve been arranged into by their speaker, but it’s the bigger picture that he fails to fathom. 

“What,” he blurts out, drawing Jongdae’s attention to himself. 

The latter’s features immediately soften as a result. He readjusts the messy locks of hair falling over his forehead like he always does, his eyes half-closed and his head tilted back, before he takes a first step towards Sehun. It’s tentative, hesitant and cautious. Jongdae has never been cautious around Sehun. From the first time they’ve met, he’s always evolved around him with ease and familiarity, not even stopping to take a look around when Sehun first took him home. This, more than everything else – more than the shooting, the wall and the nonsense – this feels wrong. Terribly wrong. 

“You were calling,” Jongdae finally says, in a voice so soft it barely overpowers the distant commotion outside his house. “You were calling _me_ and I couldn’t… I couldn’t ignore you.” 

Jongdae’s eyes flicker to Kyungsoo with hinted guilt weighing down on his features, but Kyungsoo doesn’t react. Instead, he watches Sehun with two attentive black eyes. 

“What do you mean?” Sehun croaks out. “What do you mean, I was calling you? When? You never answer your damn phone.” He pauses at the look on Jongdae’s face. “You’re not talking about your phone, are you?”

Jongdae shakes his head and a slight smile breaks the seriousness of his face. 

“You’ve been brainwashed,” Kyungsoo intervenes, impatient. “You knew Jongdae before. You knew me. And you knew … things.” 

Jongdae glares at Kyungsoo and the latter shrugs, defiant. For all the challenge pouring from his eyes, he still keeps his lips sealed at the angry look Jongdae throws him. Maybe out of caution, maybe because of plain disinterest, he turns on his heels and walks back to the wall. Sehun stares as he presses his palm against the surface and concludes that he definitely lost it when he catches the wall slightly _undulating_ under Kyungsoo’s touch. 

“I’m fucking dreaming,” he says and relief washes over him. He’s not hallucinating or having a stroke. It’s just a new fucked up level in his anxiety-depression-whatever illness. He should have seen it coming, should have guessed as soon as the sky cleared. 

“Sehun,” Jongdae sighs, but Sehun chuckles. 

“It’s my first time dreaming about you,” he smiles. “Of fucking course it’d be a fucked up dream and not something nice.” 

The bitterness of his own voice catches him off guard, but it’s somehow freeing at the same time. There’s so much space around him, so much _silence_. No wind howling, no sand beating against the windows. The distant outside noise can’t do anything to stop Sehun. He could scream his frustration and his anger if he wanted. He could finally admit out loud how unhappy he is. He could – 

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo calls, breaking Sehun’s train of thoughts. 

Jongdae looks away from Sehun, his worried face smoothening out as he draws his attention on Kyungsoo. 

“They’re gonna try and blow up the wall,” Kyungsoo says. 

Sehun looks from Kyungsoo to Jongdae, and vice versa, before chuckling. 

“Sure,” he snorts. “Because the _wall_ told you. Who the fuck are you talking about anyway?”

“Sehun,” Jongdae cuts him with a sigh. 

He turns back to Kyungsoo and joins him in a couple of stride. They exchange a glance that has Sehun’s stomach dropping, but now that he’s started, he can’t stop laughing. People have wet dreams about the ones they love, but Sehun? Nah. He dreams about strangers, about bullets and walls closing in on him. He dreams about Jongdae sharing an intimacy he is completely excluded from with someone that looks much more solid than he is. Even in his dreams, he fucking destroys everything. 

Jongdae throws a brief look at him over his shoulder. His face drops, his features hang low and guilt and regret take over his eyes, and something deeper, something bitter, like longing. Sehun’s chuckles are dry and suffocating in the back of his throat. He wishes he could stop laughing, but he can’t. He can’t, because Kyungsoo puts his hand on the wall, next to Jongdae, and lowers his head. He can’t, because the stone of the wall suddenly catches new highlights in the semi-darkness of the room, shifting from darker tones to brighter ones, from stone to what looks like silver. He can’t, because Jongdae puts his hand next to Kyungsoo’s and looks away from Sehun to turn his head to the latter. 

“Tell me,” he whispers.

Kyungsoo nods, steps back and crouches down. Sehun stops laughing as he stares at Kyungsoo’s hand, now shiny and silvery as well. He looks like a robot, but this silver hand is no prostheses. First, because Kyungsoo didn’t have one earlier, and second, because it’s too detailed. It has veins, palm lines and soft, shiny knuckles, and when Kyungsoo cracks them, they shift back to a softer tone. Flesh.

Dizzy, Sehun grabs the closest sideboard. He meets Jongdae’s eyes, too dumbstruck to ask, but Jongdae is too busy to answer anyway. After one quick hesitant glance at Sehun, he turns back to the wall and puts his second hand on the surface. 

“Kyungsoo?” he asks, tensed. 

“Not yet,” Kyungsoo immediately answers with his eyes closed and his brows furrowed in concentration. 

Sehun has no idea what fucked up thing his brain is about to unleash, but he doesn’t dare to ask. He doesn’t even dare to move. Something heavy lurks in the room and it has his lips sealed. There’s a tingle that runs along his hand, and when he glances down at the sideboard, he sees the hairs on his arm standing on their ends. Confused, he lets go of the sideboard with half a mind to examine this unexpected new event in his already confusing dream, but he startles upon seeing a tiny thunderbolt linking his palm with the surface of the sideboard. He jumps back, his heart leaping into his throat and static electricity going out with a faint crackling sound. He spins around towards Jongdae and the latter, as though feeling’s Sehun’s surprise, looks over his shoulder again. But his eyes aren’t black anymore. They’re cracked open, his retinas like tectonic plates after an earthquake and faults running all over his pupils. The depth Sehun has always seen in them is far from figurative now, but it doesn’t have the peacefulness Sehun has always associated with it. It’s chaotic, it’s like a tiny thunderstorm raging on under Jongdae’s retinas, with small but blinding lightning bolts opening his irises more and more until all the colours are drained out. Something pulls hard inside Sehun and he staggers as it tugs him. 

“Now,” Kyungsoo commands. 

Jongdae closes his eyes and all hell breaks loose. The tiny bolts in his retinas are nothing compared to what is now springing from his fingers. The silver of the wall seems to be set alight from within and crackling sounds fill Sehun’s ears. The pain in his head explodes and pure energy shoots through his body, making his bones vibrates and his body temperature heat up. The air leaves his lungs way too fast and he cannot breathe in, he cannot breathe at all, because he’s screaming, he’s screaming loud and clear but he can’t even hear his voice. 

He closes his eyes, covers his ears and falls on his knees, terrified. 

 

“Sehun? Sehun, it’s over, wake up!”

Static electricity. Sehun startles as it cracks against the back of his hands. He blinks only to find himself starring into Jongdae’s eyes. The latter is now crouched down next to him, eyebrows furrowed together with concern and hands hovering Sehun’s, hesitant but eager. His retinas are sewing themselves together, slowly covering the silver smoke whirling around with black until all is left are Jongdae’s pupils and bottomless irises. 

“It’s okay,” Jongdae whispers. “It’s over.”

Sehun glances at the window bay. The wall is still there only it’s not silver anymore but back to its previous material. It’s almost like nothing happened if not for the very distinctive burnt traces in its centre. It looks like someone spray-painted over Jongdae’s hands with soot before spreading it to the rest of the surface in intricate patterns. It looks like a tree with multiple branches. Kyungsoo is standing next to it, looking exceptionally bored. 

“What happened?” Sehun croaks out. He realises he’s lying down and pulls a face before sitting up. There’s a dormant headache digging up its way to full power in the back of his head, and a weird faint vibration happening between his teeth when he closes his mouth. He glances at the wall again, then back at Jongdae. There are more noises outside, but it sounds chaotic, as though many people were shouting and running around at the same time. The helicopter’s rotor sounds closer and something tells him that it’s now flying just above his house. His house locked by a wall that has the ability the change its material. _It’s not the wall_ , a voice tells him. It comes dangerously close to the sore spot on the back of his head where his headache is blooming, but it’s the calmest voice he’s ever heard. He glances at Kyungsoo’s hands, then back at Jongdae, whose face is still torn apart between concern and hesitation. 

“You passed out,” he says. “I…”

He pauses and clears his throat, but doesn’t add anything. 

“You did something,” Sehun continues for him. “You… you used electricity.” He turns to Kyungsoo. “And you control rocks.”

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. “It’s a little more complex than that,” he says, stressing on the its last word with disdain, but Sehun catches a hint of something softer on his face, like the beginning of a smile. 

“Do you remember?” Jongdae asks, hopeful. “Do you remember us?”

Sehun looks into his face. He can’t help but think that the mere idea of forgetting Jongdae is quite ridiculous. But is it more ridiculous than the fact that Jongdae can create lightning bolts with his fingers and that Kyungsoo turned stone into silver? There’s a sort of quiet in his mind which, all things considered, could come from the concussion he might he suffering from right now, but it comes with peace and a sense of belonging. Despite being sitting on the floor, Sehun finds himself out of breath, like he’s spent the last years running around like a fool, and now he’s finally caught a glance of the finishing line. And there’s the thug in the pit of his stomach again. 

“Tell me everything,” he asks in a quiet voice. “Who are those people outside? And who are you? And why do you think I’ve been brainwashed?”

“Oh, we don’t think,” Kyungsoo counters. “We _know_.”

Jongdae throws him a look before drawing back his attention on Sehun, obviously relieved. He takes in a lungful of air, and bites his lips. It’s crazy to see how _not_ different he is, despite from the storms that Sehun now knows are hiding in his eyes, or the whole power thing. It’s still Jongdae, with the same gestures he always does, the same looks on his face. But then again, says the voice inside his head, is it crazier than the fact that he might be ready to believe he’s not dreaming? Sehun mentally shakes himself. His headache loudly protests. 

“Okay, okay,” Jongdae starts, finally sitting down next to Sehun. He glances at Sehun’s hand but doesn’t take it, still hesitant. Sehun’s insides warm up. “The people outside, they’ve been running after us for years. Decades, really. We’re not even sure who they are. They have their whole agency hidden under piles and piles of secret paperwork.”

Sehun opens his mouth, but Jongdae shakes his head with a little smile. 

“No question for now, love. I’m giving you the short story because we’re kind of on a schedule right now, but I need your full attention, okay? I need you to focus.”

Sehun nods. His heart is still beating wildly in his chest, pumping a mixture of disbelief, apprehension and impatience through his veins. 

“Kyungsoo and I, we’re different. We’re… Uh.” Jongdae glances at Kyungsoo, looking for help, but Kyungsoo shrugs. 

“We’re gods,” he says, bluntly. 

Jongdae groans with a roll of his eyes. 

“We’re _different_ ,” he corrects. “We have abilities. There are several of us, and we were all created in a pair. It’s an old Greek legend, but it’s how we were made. Two beings forming a whole.” 

Sehun’s blood turns to ice as his eyes go from Kyungsoo to Jongdae and back again. Jongdae doesn’t seem to notice, too enthralled in his story, but Kyungsoo does catch Sehun’s gaze. He answers with a crooked smile and an amused look in his eyes. 

“And these people, they’ve been trying to catch us because they want to run experiences on our abilities. My guess is they grew bored with the sound of gunfire and they want new, better weapons. We’ve always managed to shake them off, but almost one year ago, they found us.” 

Jongdae’s voice drops and Sehun instinctively leans forward. 

“What happened to you?” he whispers. 

“Not to us, dummy,” Kyungsoo sighs. “To _you_.”

Sehun frowns and turns back his attention to Jongdae who slightly shrugs, a faint joyless smile on his lips. 

“They got you. I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop them. They got you, and you were gone.”

One year ago, Sehun had just published his first book. It was an instant success. He did a tour and met a lot of his fans, signed even more pages and awkwardly answered intrusive journalists’ questions. One year ago, Sehun was single, losing his grip on reality and checking his symptoms online. One year ago, he was alone, miserable and definitely Jongdae-less. But, for mysterious reasons, the pain in Jongdae’s eyes echoes in him, and the tug in his stomach has his abdomen muscles clenching. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” he whispers. “I have no memories whatsoever of this…”

“You disappeared for seven whole months. I looked for you everywhere,” Jongdae says. “I … You have to believe me, I really tried. I tracked down every meteorological anomaly, I tried to connect with you, but you were… just gone. I think they had you somewhere off the grid.” 

Seven months. Sehun has more than enough memories to fill seven months. When he bought the house. When he moved in. When he crashed and burned. When the sky tore apart and the wind started to howl. He shakes his head, but Jongdae scoops closer and grabs his hand, sending a slight shock through Sehun’s palm. 

“But you resurfaced,” Jongdae continues. “And you called me. I felt it so clearly. There was so much pain, so much anger and despair. You called me, so I came.”

“I never… I… don’t…”

“The wind,” Jongdae cuts him. “That’s your thing. It’s your voice. And it’s been out there, calling out for me. So I came and there you were, with no memories, nothing left of us.”

Sehun shakes his head again. The headache in the back of his head has grown stronger, hungrier. It’s feeding on his thoughts, his common sense and his reason, and Sehun’s falling apart. Jongdae’s fingers tighten around his. His nerves catch fire and send hundreds of emotions to his brain, the single touch waking up his whole body. He shakes his head again for good measure because he has no idea what to do. Jongdae’s pinning him down with his eyes, so dark and so hopeful, so sad and so eager, and Sehun struggles to understand. 

“We think they tried to run experiments on you,” Kyungsoo intervenes, in the softest voice he’s had so far. “But they probably realised you were useless without your half, so they put you out there and they’ve been watching you, waiting for you two to reconnect.”

Jongdae lowers his eyes to their linked hands. Sehun instinctively follows his gaze before trailing after Jongdae’s fingers now running up his arm. Shudder after shudder, they reach his elbow and slowly tilts Sehun’s arm before making their way to a pale pink scar on the inside of Sehun’s forearm. Then they slide to another. And another. And Sehun is left watching Jongdae’s fingers play the most fucked up version of connect the dots ever with scars he had never realised he had. 

“That’s why I’ve been leaving so early everytime we met,” Jongdae explains, now softening a long cut with the pad of his fingers. “You needed to believe I wasn’t gonna stay. But this morning, I… I couldn’t do it anymore. When you realised I’d stay with you, you stopped calling. And we clicked together again.”

Sehun stops Jongdae’s hand as it uncovers yet another ugly scar. He looks up, frowning. 

“This is crazy. And completely far-fetched. And it makes no sense. I have memories. But they’re no memories of you. It’s… Jongdae, it’s…”

“I’ve been trying to understand how they’re keeping you under control, and I think it might be the pills you’re taking, from your psy.”

Sehun lets go of Jongdae’s hand, taken aback. He shakes his head, this time more vehemently. 

“Those pills _help_ me. And how… how do you even know about my therapy? I’ve never told you.”

“Sehun, they’ve isolated you, they broke you,” Jongdae says. “But it’s gonna be okay now. It’s over. I’m back.”

Sehun wishes he had taken the time to dress properly when he woke up earlier, because when he glances down to move away from Jongdae, anger boiling in his veins, he catches a multitude of scars on his legs he swears were not here the day before. This is getting out of control. He pulls away, uses his hands for balance and gets back on his feet while shaking his head. 

“You’re crazy,” he says, pointing at Jongdae. He turns towards Kyungsoo. “And you’re crazy too.” 

“Sehun”, Jongdae sighs. “Listen to what’s happening out there. Don’t you hear them? What’s your explanation for that?”

“I’m dreaming,” Sehun counters. “I’m fucking dreaming! I always feel like I’m dreaming my days away, but this, this is new and fucked and I want _out_!” he snaps, ignoring the growing tug in his stomach that begs him to close the distance between him and Jongdae. 

“You feel like you’re dreaming your life, because it. Is. Not. Real!” Jongdae shouts, getting back on his feet as well. 

“Both of you, shut up,” Kyungsoo hisses. He turns to Jongdae. “You better work on a solution to get us out of here, because you fucked up and I don’t want to die. You,” he adds, turning to Sehun. “What was your book about?”

Sehun opens his mouth, with all the confidence he’s ever had backing up his challenging posture, with his belief that he’s just ruining what could have been a good night of sleep – again – but he finds himself wordless. He knows the title is amazing, he remembers reading articles about how fitting it was, and he remembers the endless questions about it. But what were they asking about? Was it fitting because of the plot? Was it a pun? What was the fucking book about?

Sehun feels himself crumbling down, and panic like he’s never known rises up in his chest like an unstoppable tide. It takes over his heart and closes around his lungs, stealing the air from him. He hyperventilates, as his mind follows the long trail of lies and incomplete memories, and he realises he doesn’t remember the name of his literary agent, or ever talking to him although he knows for sure the latter has been sending him mails about deadlines for his second book. He doesn’t even remember ever sitting down at his laptop to write. To _actually_ write. 

“It’s okay, love, it’s okay,” Jongdae says as Sehun struggles to breathe. “It’s okay, I’m here now, we’ll get you out of here, I promise.”

His hands close around Sehun’s shoulders, solid and real. That, he remembers. He remembers meeting Jongdae, he remembers falling in love with him – fast and eagerly – and he remembers the kisses, the touches, Jongdae’s grip on his waist, Jongdae’s grip on his neck. 

“It’s okay,” Jongdae whispers. He buries his face in Sehun’s neck and leaves a trail of kisses under his ear, his hand curling into the hair at the base of Sehun’s nape. He presses Sehun harder against him, and Sehun clings to him, his breathing whistling in the heavy silence of the house. 

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo calls, pressing.

“You’re okay,” Jongdae says, ignoring Kyungsoo. He pulls away and cups Sehun’s face in his hands, so small but so important. “You’re okay,” he repeats, his voice strong. “We’re gonna get out of there.”

“Jongdae,” Kyungsoo thunders. “Something’s happening out there.”

Jongdae turns his head to glance at the bay window, now a bay wall, and Sehun manages to catch some thumping around between two broken sob. Kyungsoo exchanges a heavy glance with Jongdae before crouching down to press his hand on the floor. In the semi-darkness of the room, Sehun thinks he sees the floor undulates as though responding to Kyungsoo’s touch, but his feet are still firmly planted on the wooden floor. Jongdae slowly lets go of his neck as he turns towards Kyungsoo, his brows furrowed. He glances at Sehun while Kyungsoo focuses and their eyes meet. Jongdae gives him a slight smile. 

“It’s gonna be fine,” he whispers. “I prom— “

For the second time today, someone shoots at Sehun’s house. For the second time, it rains bullets and gunpowder. Tiny shafts of light break the darkness of the room, pushing back shadows – and safety. Jongdae’s arm clenches around Sehun as he gasps, caught by the suddenness of this new threat. Sehun expects pain, he expects blood and whatever taste death has on the back of his tongue, but although he is frozen by surprise and fear and the gunfire doesn’t stop, nothing come. Risking a glance on his right, he freezes upon seeing Kyungsoo shielding both he and Jongdae from the wall and the bullets it keeps spitting at them. Above his shoulders, Sehun notices that the top of the wall is already starting to crumble down, jeopardised by the shooting done to it. But, more than anything, he notices Kyungsoo’s dark skin and the stone quality of it. He blinks at them, long lashes set in stone fluttering against just as solid cheekbones. His hair is stuck in the movement, his bangs sticking out, and his eyes, although as dark as the rest of his body, still stops on Sehun with depth and slight annoyance. 

“Onyx,” he says, like it’s so obvious. 

Sehun watches, mouth agape, as Kyungsoo’s back stops the bullets, stone dust flying off of his statue body, until, at least, Jongdae pulls him out of his confused state. 

“This way,” he calls out, grabbing Sehun’s wrist and pulling him towards his bedroom. 

Kyungsoo follows, his gait light and fast despite the stone he is now made of. Sehun would watch him more if he could, but the bullets are still destroying the wall and what was left of his furniture, and he’d rather not add his own body to the list of things taken down by the never-ending burst of gunfire. He bends down, pulling Jongdae down with him and takes the lead. He doesn’t slow down, even in the relative safety of the tiny corridor and it was the right bet, because they’re not to his bedroom yet that the shooting stops and that loud voices get closer. _They’re inside_ he realises, and the instinctive, almost bestial fear that explodes in his chest is much stronger than the remaining doubts he had left. 

He skids to a halt once he ran past his bedroom door and shuts it as soon as Kyungsoo and Jongdae joined him. Kyungsoo grabs him and pushes him away from the door before pressing his two hands on the surface. Sehun may have expected it, but seeing the stone escape from under his palms like liquid material, and cover the door and the wall inches by inches still surprises him. He steps away and turns around to check on Jongdae, but the latter has his eyes set on Kyungsoo. 

“Kyungsoo,” he says. 

Kyungsoo groans, his arms shaking with what Sehun supposes is concentration. He’s back to flesh now, but Sehun sees a tribute to the onyx statue he was a few seconds earlier in the highlights of his hair. 

“I know,” Kyungsoo groans. “I need to get the window.”

“Kyungsoo, stop,” Jongdae orders, which confuses Sehun. 

He opens his mouth to ask, but the growing dark red stain on the back of Kyungsoo’s shirt answers his unvoiced question. His heart explodes with a pang as the new stone wall starts covering the window. 

“Oh my god, you’ve been shot,” he gasps, and Kyungsoo chuckles, still focused on his task. 

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Do you have anything here that we could use, Sehun? Any first-aid kit?” Jongdae asks as the light finally leaves the room. Even in the darkness, Sehun catches the fear filling Jongdae’s eyes. He shakes his head. 

“It’s in the bathroom.”

Jongdae curses under his breath as Kyungsoo steps away from the door with a grimace. 

“I didn’t turn to stone fast enough,” he says, holding his shoulder, his face standing out like a ghost in the shadows. “But I’ll be okay, it’s just… painful.” 

Sehun reaches out for his pillow and takes it out of the pillowcase. As he does so, he catches a hint of Jongdae’s smell on his bed, and his heart misses a beat when he remembers what he and Jongdae did in this bed the night before. It feels like forever ago. Waking up an being happy about breakfast feels like forever ago. He shuts off his thoughts and turns back to Kyungsoo now sat down by the door. Jongdae has lifted his shirt to check on his wound, but all Sehun sees is the blood running down Kyungsoo’s back. He can even smell it as he kneels next to Jongdae and hands the latter his makeshift compress. Jongdae takes it with a slight smile and presses it on Kyungsoo’s wound. The latter hisses and tenses as the skin around the bullet hole shifts through several textures of stone. 

“Sorry,” Jongdae grumbles. He glances at Sehun as blood quickly soaks the pillowcase. 

“They’re already getting ready on the other side of the door,” Kyungsoo groans. “You don’t have time to be delicate.”

“I think I need to cauterize the wound, Kyungsoo. You’re bleeding a lot.”

“A lot,” Sehun repeats, his senses on full panic at the amount of blood trickling from the pillowcase. 

Jongdae throws him a reassuring look before patting him softly on his bare thigh and leaving bloody fingertips on Sehun’s skin. The latter’s stomach clenches at the sight and he pulls away, unable to take more of the sight. He turns around and his eyes naturally stop on his laptop. He thinks about all the nightmares he’s had about that same laptop opening and engulfing him in the middle of the night, about the keyboards choking him and the charger strangling him, and anger as red as the blood on his thigh flares up. 

“You don’t have time to cauterize, Jongdae. We don’t have time at all,” Kyungsoo snaps. 

Sehun doesn’t pay attention to the look on Jongdae’s face but, upon hearing the soft _I’m sorry Kyungsoo_ slipping from the latter, his guess is on guilt. He doesn’t hear what Kyungsoo hears, and he doesn’t care, because all that matters right now is that fucking laptop. He opens it, turns it on and feels his blood boiling in his veins as he waits for the familiar plain black background to appear. On the right of his desk are his pens and notebooks, for random ideas he might have at the most random moments, but they’re blank and they’ve never been opened. Because Sehun is no writer. He thought he was, he thought he had that special kind of talent it takes to choose the right combination of words and turn details into plots, but he doesn’t. He is not a writer. For all he knows, he never ever written a fucking word in his life. 

His fingers stab the mouse pad as he opens his _work in progress_ file – a file he had always thought familiar but who fucking knows. There are several Word documents, all of them numbered but untitled, and completely meaningless for Sehun. He selects them all and presses the enter key so hard that it probably breaks. He doesn’t care. He. Doesn’t. Care. 

They open quickly, too quickly for a laptop that’s supposed to be almost three-year-old. On his left, Kyungsoo groans as Jongdae presses the pillowcase harder on his wound, desperately trying to stop the bleeding. Sehun’s eyes fill with white. White. The pages, they’re all blank. There’s nothing. Not even a lame, short draft. Nothing. Because he is not a writer. He never was. Except that he didn’t know. 

The roof above their heads cracks, the wood protesting to the sudden tension it was not built to resist. Jongdae immediately looks up. His free hand grabs Kyungsoo’s arm and he pulls hard. Kyungsoo looks at the ceiling before turning towards Sehun. 

Sehun who isn’t a writer. Who never wrote anything, was never famous, never met his fans, never ever created something he was proud of. Sehun who spent months punishing himself for not being able to do it again, unknowing of the fact that he had never done it in the first place. Sehun boiling in anger, in rage, and eager to get revenge, to take back control over his life. 

Jongdae opens his mouth, but Kyungsoo stops him with a shake of his head and a press of his palm. He pulls away, puts back his shirt correctly and quietly gestures at Jongdae to squat closer to the door. Jongdae immediately does so, although unable to tear his eyes away from Sehun, from the power he can feel rising all around him. It’s like breathing after suffocating for hours. He can literally feel himself coming back to life. His cells are multiplying again, his lungs are swelling, his heart is beating. The familiar tug in his stomach grows stronger and stronger, delighted and pleased. 

Sehun’s rage speaks in volume, and it keeps growing. It’s so large actually that it becomes palpable, and Sehun can almost see it expanding in the room, in the empty space around him. The helicopter chop chops above his head, its pilot probably enjoying how powerful and unreachable he is. Was he part of those who decided to make Sehun a writer? A writer that cannot fucking write? Sehun’s lungs swell in his chest, pushing back his ribcage and pressing hard against his heart. His vision turns foggy, unclear. He thinks about the truth. About this life he supposedly had with Jongdae, in love with Jongdae, loving Jongdae, being loved by Jongdae. The room is way too small for his anger. 

The ceiling lets out one single plaintive whine before it’s ripped off by a sudden powerful blast of wind. Pieces of plaster and tiles rain down in Sehun’s room, mineral wool dangling at the top of the broken walls and bare electric wires crackling threateningly. The sound is deafening, and it shakes Sehun to his core, breaking him out of his rage-fuelled trance. Surprised, he bends down and shields his head with his arms, unable to take his eyes from the patch of blue sky now over his head. The ripped-off roof hits the helicopter head on, way too fast for its pilot to be able to do anything, and they both crash on the beach. Technically still inside the house, Sehun does not see the explosion, but he hears it, and he sees the burst of flames reaching out to the sky. 

Mouth agape, he stares at the column of smoke, power tingling through his whole body and his heart beating wildly in his chest. Jongdae runs to him, his pupils dilated. The tug in Sehun’s stomach is stronger than it’s ever been, and Sehun doesn’t question it this time. He turns around, grabs Jongdae’s neck and pulls him close, as close as possible, so close that it irremediably ends up in a kiss, and then closer again so they kiss deeper than they’ve ever kissed. 

Jongdae’s thigh presses against his hipbone, his hands curl in Sehun’s hair and his warmth sends shivers down Sehun’s spine. When he pulls away, panting but oh so alive, Jongdae looks at him with wide eyes and parted lips. 

Kyungsoo clears his throat behind them. When they draw their attention to him, Jongdae still on his tiptoes and Sehun’s hand still clenching on his thigh, Kyungsoo’s face remains indifferent. It’s familiar, Sehun realises, and he follows the trail until he notices, discreet but solid, the spark of amusement in the depth of Kyungsoo’s irises. 

“We still have an escape to –“ 

The rest of his sentence gets drowned in the new burst of gunfire. Kyungsoo rolls on the side to avoid the bullets now taking down the bedroom door. Jongdae and Sehun rush forward in perfect synchronization, but Jongdae is the one slipping an arm around his torso to help him get back on his feet. He looks up at Sehun, his eyes breaking apart, pieces by pieces. Sehun can already feel the heavy tension, the distant vibration. He feels like his teeth are about to fall. 

“We’re gonna go that way!” Jongdae shouts to cover the gunfire. He gestures at the wall that is now sealing the window. 

Sehun hears shouting coming from the other side, random orders that he cannot quite grasp. He takes Kyungsoo’s other arm and meets Jongdae’s eyes over Kyungsoo’s shoulders. Despite the now open room and the lack of roof, the brightness in the bedroom is dropping drastically minute by minute. Far above the sea, the sky is darkening quickly, clouds thickening and whirling around, following invisible winds. 

“It won’t be of any help, guys,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m too weak.” He glances at Sehun. “But you’ll be fine. Now that you’re connected, you’re stronger than me anyway.”

“But I don’t—“ Sehun starts

“You better do,” Kyungsoo cuts him. 

“He’s already doing it.”

Jongdae’s head is tilted back, his face turned towards the sky and his lips stretched into a wide smile. Following his gaze, Sehun realises the dark clouds have reached the coast and are now hanging low over their heads. They’re moving fast and in an odd way, and for a surreal moment, Sehun has the image of someone stirring the clouds with a spoon like they would do their coffee. Thunder rumbles in the distance, flashing bright light across the sky and tearing it apart. This is about to be the biggest storm Sehun has ever seen. 

“And I’m doing it too,” Jongdae says with a little smile. He looks so beautiful, with his hair ruffling away from his face and the two tiny universes in his eyes. The pull in Sehun’s stomach is stronger than ever. 

A part of the door behind them breaks and falls to the floor, the thumping sound anchoring them back to reality. Sehun barely has time to catch a glimpse of the guns on the other side that Jongdae has already let go of Kyungsoo, whirled around and raised his palm in the air. The lightning bolt that spurts out of his palm is everything but straight. It reaches forward, almost hesitant as it flickers around with smaller extensions of it testing a few possible ways until it gets closer to the door. The bodies on the other side, with their magnetism and beating hearts, act like targets and the lightning bolt rushes forward. After that, it’s loud crackling sounds and muffled screams. 

Sehun’s attention is taken away from the morbid show by Kyungsoo who pulls him down rather violently. His hand clench on Sehun’s nape, painful but too strong for Sehun to pull away. The look in Kyungsoo’s eyes would have been enough to keep him quiet and submissive anyway. 

“You have friends,” Kyungsoo starts. “There are several of us. We’re your family. We’ve been around for decades.”

“W-what?” Sehun stutters, confused. His eyes are irremediably drawn to Jongdae, but Kyungsoo takes his face between his palms sticky with blood. 

“You and Jongdae, you’ve always been the most adventurous. You travelled around the world several times. So many memories. So many people that care for you forgotten because of those pills. Because of _them_.”

Sehun’s breath dies in the back of his throat. He glances at the sky, thick and threatening, and at the solid wall before them. 

“Kyungsoo?” Jongdae asks, pressing, his palm still delivering chaos and the end of the world. 

Kyungsoo leans closer to Sehun, so close actually that Sehun catches the pallor of his face in the black of Kyungsoo’s irises. 

“You don’t even remember the first time you kissed Jongdae,” he whispers.

His words fly to Sehun and die in his ears. It’s there again, the anger, the rage. He knows Kyungsoo wants it, but even the idea that he could be playing with him and telling lies doesn’t even manage to calm him down. His breath hitches and oxygen burns the back of his throat. Anger is flaring up, boiling the blood in his veins. Once again, he finds himself looking up at the sky. 

“Kyungsoo?!” Jongdae is now shouting. 

Kyungsoo looks at Sehun’s eyes, the darkness in his own reflecting the way Sehun’s irises are now whirling around like smoke. 

“Now!” he shouts before bending down, shielding his head with one arm and reaching out to press his palm on the wall. 

As soon as his fingers scrape the cold surface, the solid rock immediately switches to white sand. Before basic laws of physics take over and gravity has the sand wall collapsing to the ground, Jongdae turns around and unleashes his own power against it, fixing the grains together and turning them to sharp glass pikes. Sehun’s anger reaches a new peak and it all goes flying away, fast and unstoppable. So fast actually that some of them don’t even stop after flying through someone’s chest but instead keep their course to the sea, covered in blood. It doesn’t go in every direction though, the gust of air pretty straight and too angry to mind about details, and it’s too late when Sehun realises his mistake. Too late happens in less than a second, it happens so fast that the information struggles to reach his brain, but the conclusions are easy to draw when Sehun hears the gunshot and sees Jongdae falling to the ground. 

There’s blood. Blood all over Kyungsoo’s back, blood all over Jongdae’s stomach. Blood. Panic and fear like he’s never known before rise up in Sehun’s chest, so intense he thinks he hears his ribcage crack. He slides to Jongdae on all four, but it’s the latter’s hand that pulls him in all the way when it closes around his shirt. 

“You need to go,” he says, wincing. There’s blood. Blood all over his stomach, blood thickening his voice. Sehun hears his sobs from a distance. “Sehun, listen,” Jongdae hurries him, pressing, urging. His eyes are wide open, back to their softness and depth, pain is heaving down on his features. “I’ll heal. We heal from just about everything. But just…” He glances over Sehun’s shoulder and Sehun instinctively follows his gaze. Soldiers are closing in on the bedroom, guns aimed at them, black masks concealing their humanity. 

“No, no,” Sehun sobs. He glances at Kyungsoo who gestures him to go through the bedroom door, but Sehun shakes his head. He shifts closer to Jongdae but the latter pushes him as strongly as he can. 

“You need to run,” he says. “Run!”

You need to run. 

You need to run. 

_You need to run._

_Run_. 

 

“Run! Run, for fuck’s sake!” Sehun shouts, from the back of the alley he’s been cornered in. 

His enemies are faceless, mechanic, robotic. He wonders if they have a conscience of their own or if they’ve been created for the sole purpose of breaking things, of taking them apart. They’re so synchronised that they could be one giant beast with several heads, several legs. Several guns aimed at him. One of them turns around when Sehun screams, but Jongdae’s silhouette at the entrance of the alley doesn’t look as tempting as Sehun. There’s too much space over there, too many possibilities. They’ve been trained to avoid frontal confrontation with people like Sehun, like Jongdae. Sehun has no way out, but Jongdae has plenty. For now. Sehun is afraid he’ll jump into the beast’s belly on his own. 

“Run!” he repeats as he takes another step back. His back knocks into the brick wall. It’s over. He’s done. He’s gonna be eaten alive. That barely sounds scary to him, not even half as scary as the idea that Jongdae could follow him to hell. So Sehun gathers his courage, his power and his anger. The sky turns to a threatening whirl of clouds. 

He sees in slow motion Jongdae raising his hand, answering to Sehun’s call for power and his fear explodes in his chest. Jongdae’s still holding the grocery bag he left for, following his sudden urge for curry noodles. 

Sehun’s last constructed thought is about Kyungsoo. He hopes the latter will be clever enough to stop Jongdae from barging into the Agency’s headquarters. 

Then everything is wind, the memory of Jongdae’s silhouette being taken away by invisible hands, strong airflows, and guns firing, pain, blood. So much blood. So much pain. Jongdae disappearing. 

 

Sehun blinks away the tears flooding his eyes. His vision focuses again, and the first thing he sees are Jongdae’s pleading eyes and blood, so much blood. So much pain. Something bitter is burning the back of his throat and his whole body tingles with the memories of dozens of bullets piercing his skin, ripping his organs to shred, cracking his bones. There’s something about syringes too, about liquid pain being injected directly into his body, about cold electricity – electricity that isn’t Jongdae – taking over his synapses, feeding on his heartbeats. 

“I remember,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “I… I remember…”

“Sehun, please,” Jongdae begs with a sob. “Please, go, go…” 

“Step away,” a loud voice says behind his back. 

Sehun looks over his shoulder. Faceless robots, with dozens of guns aimed at him, at Jongdae. Kyungsoo has been taken already, a shiny riffle now pressing against his temple. It’s not as threatening as the anger swelling in his eyes. Those bullets, those robots- Sehun knows they took Kyungsoo’s better half years ago, decades really. They never gave it back. They couldn’t. There was too much blood, too much pain. The belly of the beast. 

Sehun looks back at Jongdae’s pale face and teary eyes. He’s so beautiful. Jongdae is the most beautiful when he’s lying down next to Sehun, when his hair is left uncared for, when it’s too long but still shiny, still soft. He’s the most beautiful basking in Greece’s sunlight, against Paris’ geometrical horizon line, when he kisses Sehun with his feet dangling over the Great Canyon. When he’s smiling, crying, looking at Sehun, frowning, laughing, sleeping, living. 

“Sehun,” the loud voice says again. Sehun’s name came out so easily, with so much familiarity that Sehun feels dirty. “Step. Aside.”

Jongdae blinks at him, but he doesn’t beg. He’s been there before after all. He knows he would have stayed if Sehun hadn’t pushed him away. Jongdae is the most beautiful when he watches Sehun with complete trust, with so much love that it hurts. 

“I remember you,” Sehun whispers, leaning down to kiss Jongdae’s forehead. He may not be a writer or even a great reader, but he’s pretty sure that never before was a better combination of words. 

Jongdae slowly closes his eyes, and Sehun moves away. His bare legs scrape against the bits and pieces covering he bedroom’s floor. He turns around, and meets Kyungsoo’s eyes. They’re vomiting fire, sharp and strong like diamonds. Under the anger, the rage, there’s familiarity. A discreet but solid hint of amusement. Sehun holds back his own smile as he finally looks up at the owner of the low voice. Above the sea behind the row of faceless soldiers, the sky lowers, clouds whirling around and reaching down to the sea, shaping themselves into a tornado. Wind ruffles through Sehun’s hair, and this time, he can’t do nothing about the smile blooming on his face. 

He feels complete, at last.


End file.
